AMD finally stepped out of its shell after Intel's launch of its newest line of Xeon processors based on the Nehalem architecture. In an interview with TechPulse 360, AMD's Pat Patla and John Fruehe took on Intel's recent marketing drive for Nehalem Xeon products. The conversation revolved mainly around the issues of platform costs, and the features the new Xeon processors introduce (or reintroduce) to the server/enterprise computing industry, namely the company's proprietary FSB-replacement, QuickPath Interconnect, and HyperThreading.

The two first took on Intel's marketing, particularly on its material that said that the slowest Nehalem Xeon chip was faster than the fastest Opteron chip, saying that Intel's statements weren't backed by real figures. The two also alleged that Intel's server platform was too expensive and delivered lesser value in an ailing state of the economy. Perhaps the most audacious statement from AMD since the somewhat famous "only real men have fabs" statement by Jerry Sanders III, came from this interview, where AMD responded to a question on HyperThreading saying that "real men use real cores". "We’ve got real cores across our products. HyperThreading is basically designed to act like a core except that it only gives 10 to 15 percent performance bump for real applications workload." they said. Is AMD making a real point, or fighting fire...erm marketing with marketing? Find out in this interview.

I think they're getting cocky.. Again. Which usually turns out to be good for them. If I remember correctly they got cocky around the HD 4000 and Phenom II launch, when are their 6 core server CPU's gonna be released again?

Sure the intel platforms cost more.... thats beacuse your getting double the computing power. So in reality when you have to buy two opteron systems to equal one intel... its cheaper in the long run for the intel setup.

Sure the intel platforms cost more.... thats beacuse your getting double the computing power. So in reality when you have to buy two opteron systems to equal one intel... its cheaper in the long run for the intel setup.

Morons.

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And dont forget energy consumption and complexity, how many fabs does AMD own now btw?

Six core "Istanbul" processor comes out the end of this quarter. What surprised me is that the 12 core processors are already being sampled. However, from what I've read, I don't think that the 12 core "magny cours" (creative name ) processor will be a native 12 core. So I hope that all the crap AMD gave to Intel about their Kentsfield architecture being a "duct tape mod" doesn't get thrown back in their face.

What is good though, is that Intel may already have their 6 core "Dunnington" on the market, but it is using the older Core 2 architecture without a built in memory controller (let alone the triple channel one in the Nehalem architecture). This means that AMD may still have the upper hand in memory bandwidth on 6 core processors. Also, these are straight up drop in upgrades and are MUCH more appealing to those who run servers (especially who are already running Opteron) as opposed to the ship that has to be jumped through to go from the Core 2 Xeon to the Nehalem Xeon.

What is good though, is that Intel may already have their 6 core "Dunnington" on the market, but it is using the older Core 2 architecture without a built in memory controller (let alone the triple channel one in the Nehalem architecture). This means that AMD may still have the upper hand in memory bandwidth on 6 core processors. Also, these are straight up drop in upgrades and are MUCH more appealing to those who run servers (especially who are already running Opteron) as opposed to the ship that has to be jumped through to go from the Core 2 Xeon to the Nehalem Xeon.

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Bandwidth? FB-DIMM can achieve some 12,000+ MB/s bandwidth using DDR2-553. AMD only has the advantage in terms of memory latency which will be mostly erased as more Nehalem-based processors hit the market.

And funny AMD mocks Hyperthreading. Hyperthreading means virtually none of the processor sits idle. What's so bad about that? It's good because more work is done per clock without a significant addition of more power draw and heat production. That means it's great for servers. AMD needs a better line than that like, "We're second place and lov'in it!" Or, "AMD, the tortoise: slow and steady. But we'll win in the end!"

"HyperThreading is basically designed to act like a core except that it only gives 10 to 15 percent performance bump for real applications workload." they said.

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Oh dear, that's quite an inaccurate slander. Should get him into trouble. Perhaps HT only made 10-15% performance difference on P4/Northwood architecture, but on Nehalem it gives 20-50% performance boost on multithreaded apps. Unless of course you cherry pick your benchmarks to show the worst data:shadedshu...

Oh dear, that's quite an inaccurate slander. Should get him into trouble. Perhaps HT only made 10-15% performance difference on P4/Northwood architecture, but on Nehalem it gives 20-50% performance boost on multithreaded apps. Unless of course you cherry pick your benchmarks to show the worst data:shadedshu...

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It's obvious that logical cores can't compete with physical ones but what's undeniable is that they do boost the processor's power.

An 8 physical core AMD would (should?) kick the living hell out of any (current) I7 but AMD isn't there yet, nor is Intel for that matter.

Many claim that Phenom IIs aren't meant to be competing with I7s and should be competing with Yorkfields instead but i disagree: It's not Intel's fault AMD hasn't been able to make a closer (or better) performer to it's I7 and Intel's top CPUs should be competing with AMD's top CPUs.

This is no cause for AMD to give up: quite the contrary. Intel may have thought they were miles ahead of AMD but AMD have responded well, though not as good as they might have liked, but they did closed the gap quite a bit, IMHO.

In these CPU wars, one manufacturer must NOT get too far away from the other or it will be us consumers that will pay the price, literally.

In these CPU wars, one manufacturer must NOT get too far away from the other or it will be us consumers that will pay the price, literally.

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Why all AMD fans go with that bs all the time? You know what? F*** that shit. This is the same bs I've been reading over and over ever since core 2 duo came out. What a crap. The truth is the other way around - if you want to have the newest, fastest and with big overclock potential cpu you just pay the big price, yeah, that's what high end means ffs. Right now Intel is like 1 light year ahead of AMD with Nehalem whatever you like it or not. It's a fact. Yet i7 920 that goes 3.8/4.0 with almost every x58 board is like what? $280.. news flash I bought my E4300 when it came out for $240, that was 2 years ago. So you know what? F*** off with that "if it wasn't for amd we have to pay $3000 for a cpu bla bla bla" crap. that's some bs, not to mention amd overprice their cpu's, PII 940 when it came out was ~$260 and clock-to-clock was weaker then Q6600 ffs.. amd is dead, it has been dead ever since c2d hit the market, deal with it.. yet you dont have to pay $3000 for i7 920..

Why all AMD fans go with that bs all the time? You know what? F*** that shit. This is the same bs I've been reading over and over ever since core 2 duo came out. What a crap. The truth is the other way around - if you want to have the newest, fastest and with big overclock potential cpu you just pay the big price, yeah, that's what high end means ffs. Right now Intel is like 1 light year ahead of AMD with Nehalem whatever you like it or not. It's a fact. Yet i7 920 that goes 3.8/4.0 with almost every x58 board is like what? $280.. news flash I bought my E4300 when it came out for $240, that was 2 years ago. So you know what? F*** off with that "if it wasn't for amd we have to pay $3000 for a cpu bla bla bla" crap. that's some bs, not to mention amd overprice their cpu's, PII 940 when it came out was ~$260 and clock-to-clock was weaker then Q6600 ffs.. amd is dead, it has been dead ever since c2d hit the market, deal with it.. yet you dont have to pay $3000 for i7 920..

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Let me give you an example: here in my area, a gas vendor started selling their gas (lower quality) 10 cents per liter lower then anyone else (this was when the gas prices were very high).

What do you think the result was? They started getting far more costumers then anyone else and the competition started lowering their prices as well.

Who do you think won this? IMO, there were two winners:

- the dudes that started selling the gas @ 10 cents lower then anyone else which gave them hordes of costumers and, despite been selling @ a lower price, made them more money then those that sold @ regular price;

- those consumers that saved 10 cents per liter and ended up saving a ton of money.

The point i'm trying to put across is that, without competition, those that sell a product can set it's price freely but, when faced with competition, they are forced to make a competitive price.

Many claim that Phenom IIs aren't meant to be competing with I7s and should be competing with Yorkfields instead but i disagree: It's not Intel's fault AMD hasn't been able to make a closer (or better) performer to it's I7 and Intel's top CPUs should be competing with AMD's top CPUs.

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Actually it is--but intentinonally so. Intel has at least three research teams: process, NetBurst, and Pentium Pro (for lack of better terms). AMD has only two: process (the foundry company) and Kryptonite (K series of architectures). Intel stumbled bad on NetBurst expecting it to be, well, miraculous. It can do 10+ GHz!!!! Wrong. Intel had faith in their engineers and after a few years (especially Hammer's release) it became clear that NetBurst was more or less a boondoggle: big on promises, little on delievery.

This is where Intel threw a curveball: instead of telling those working on NetBurst to just give up, they let them continue to peck away at the idea of NetBurst while they get another research lab in Israel to look at destops/workstations. Israel, deciding that NetBurst wouldn't work for mobile processors some time before because of heavy power demands and high wattage, went back to Pentium III to develop what would be sold as Pentium M and later Core. Intel saw how well the Pentium M's were doing (namely, weren't stuck in an infinite loop of trying to get higher clockspeeds) and had them adopt their yet-to-be-released Core architecture to desktop, and later, workstation use. It worked. Intel released a product that caught virtually everyone (especially AMD) off guard: the Core 2.

Meanwhile, the research firm back in the USA was still trying to turn Nehalem into a feasible product. It took them 4-6 years but they did it. AMD, already shamed, was shamed again.

Morale of the story, Intel hit their stride and they are simply outspending and out-innovating AMD at every turn. AMD is, again, relegated to K5/K6 territory where they make and sell processors that are cheap. Let's just hope they don't fall back into reverse-engineering Intel products like they did back in the 80's and 90's.

This is no cause for AMD to give up: quite the contrary. Intel may have thought they were miles ahead of AMD but AMD have responded well, though not as good as they might have liked, but they did closed the gap quite a bit, IMHO.

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Note the clockspeeds a lot of Nehalem processors can achieve on air. If Intel feels threatened, expect those stock clocks to increase by at least 1 GHz (1/4 greater stock performance than available now). AMD has to not only match Intel, but even do one better to threaten Intel's position. Yeah, it's great if AMD can manage it but, stating the obvious here, it is a very steep hill to climb.

Oh, and AMD fell way behind not because Phenom sucked--just AMD's/IBM's 65nm process was absolutely hideous. People kept buying 90nm Windsor processors because 65nm Brisbanes (remember the introduction of .5 multipliers?) were coughing and choking to keep up with the Windsors, let alone a Core 2. I'm glad they put that bad chapter behind them. That was depressing.